Mine, theirs—mostly theirs. Looking around, I estimated two dozen bodies this time. Unfortunately, I didn’t recognize any of them. The first group’s reinforcements hadn’t arrived in time. I discarded the broken Hell-forged sword in my off-hand and picked up a replacement, testing its weight, discarding it, then finding another whose balance I liked better. It would work until I found something more suited for defense—for all sorts of reasons, the more military rank and file of the forces of Hell never had any problem getting more things to shed blood with, but their superiors rarely cared as much about their survivability. Replacing the weapon was all the time I had. The baying of the hellhound packs was a constant now that they’d had time to organize the hunt. Sneaking past some of the sentries had worked for a while, but once they had the hounds out and leashed—as controlled as the packs ever got—the only option was often violence. I was better at violence anyway, but it left a trail.
